From Texas to Mars

In 2002, flooding in Central Texas caused a breach of Canyon Lake’s spillway. Water rushed uncontrolled from the reservoir and in three days carved the Canyon Lake Gorge, sort of a miniature grand canyon.

Two scientists, including Mark Fonstad at Texas State University, published a paper detailing how the event offers clues to ancient megaflood events on Earth and Mars. They theorize that megafloods may have caused canyon formations in much less time than originally believed.

According to the article, “some of the biggest and best-studied of these events are thought to have occurred on Mars, and in North America at the end of the last Ice Age, when the Missoula Floods carved the ‘Channeled Scablands’ of Washington State. All of these occurred long before anyone was around to witness them, leaving scientists with only models of erosion to fall back on.”

That is until 2002, when almost one meter of rain fell on the Texas hill country north of San Antonio in the course of a week.